Of the 196 girls that ran at NXN, 58 made it to NXN last year. The average improvement for returners was just eight seconds.

The biggest improvement from year-to-year was NXN champ Katelyn Tuohy, who dropped just under a minute and 15 seconds to set a course record.

The most experienced team was the girls champion, Fayetteville-Manlius, along with Broomfield, and Keller, all of which had six of their seven runners who ran at NXN in 2016. Of those three teams, Keller had the biggest improvement, with its girls averaging 22 seconds faster than the previous year. FM improved by just three seconds on average from 2016.

There were three girls who have competed in the last four Nike Cross Nationals -- Sarah Schmidt, Sophie Ryan, and Sandra Pflughoft. There were an additional 15 girls who have now run NXN three times.